As I creep through the heavy fog of Silent Hill: Townfall, I'm met by an oddly familiar sight amid the terror - a sign for a Sunday roast. For the first time, one of gaming's biggest horror franchises - created in Japan but traditionally set in the US - has come to the UK, set on a fictional Scottish island. Jon McKellan, director at Glaswegian developers Screen Burn, told me taking on the mega brand was an "absolutely terrifying" prospect for the relatively small team.
As a fan of the games, I was keen to find out what one of the most iconic survival horror series looks like in Scotland - and whether it can live up to its legacy. I played Silent Hill: Townfall, which was released on Thursday, on my PlayStation 5, and it ran well, though there have been some reports, external from others of performance issues. Set in 1996, the game follows the plight of an American man called Simon Ordell, who washes up on St Amelia with a red hospital ID band around his wrist and an IV drip in his arm.
As is to be expected from the Silent Hill games, the real reasons why you're there and what's going on are teased as you progress through the story in a typically vague fashion. The team took inspiration for the setting from the tiny fishing village of St Monans in Fife. For those concerned the game might lean into any typical Scottish stereotypes, McKellan told me he wanted it to feel "authentic and natural".
"It's not tartan everywhere, but if you grew up in a working-class town in the 90s, you will get a lot of the references," he said. In Townfall I walked past film-quality models of red pillar boxes, 20 mph speed limit signs and charity collection boxes shaped like guide dogs. Not since 2006, when I had to storm Manchester Cathedral in Resistance: Fall of Man, have I felt an oddly patriotic attachment to game areas or objects.
To save the game, I had to use a phone, which often meant stepping inside a "coins and card" telephone box - a sight instantly familiar to anyone old enough to remember them on British streets. Meanwhile, a level set in a council estate leans into the concrete starkness of the area's looming grey buildings. While some may question why the main character is American rather than Scottish given the setting, there are narrative reasons why Simon is more of an outsider to this community, which are slowly drip-fed into cutscenes and in-game documents.
For the most part I was intrigued by the story, which, like many of the previous games, explores themes of trauma and guilt sensitively. This edition also touches on ideas around the impact of big corporations on small communities, which brought added relevance to the setting of an isolated seaside town. I soon had to face the island's monsters - gnarled, fleshy beings with axe-like heads or mangled faces.
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